"I'm going to come back to West Virginia when this is over. There's something ancient and deeply-rooted in my soul. I like to think that I have left my ghost up one of those hollows, and I'll never really be able to leave for good until I find it. And I don't want to look for it, because I might find it and have to leave".----Breece D'J Pancake, in a letter to his mother.

Christy Hartman: Rolling in the Ashes, An Essay. Why I left environmental activism.

If you say you are
quitting cigarettes, people are generally supportive. Maybe there's one person
who rags on you, especially as you stand outside with them on a cold January
night, the air begging for the combustion of a match, they say. But, in 2009, I
didn't quit smoking. I quit environmental activism. And what I discovered was
that people didn't really know what to say. Oh, so suddenly you hate trees? You
hate polar bears. You love pollution? You don't care about humanity?
Luckily, no one asked me these questions. Rather, I asked myself these
questions. There was no one waiting to thrust a sign in my hand, and encourage
me to break my temperance. Likewise, when the day came, there were no
cheerleaders standing on the side of the empty road outside my house on 38th
street. Instead, as I loaded my car, what I remember is the sound of ice
crunching underfoot, a midnight blue sky. My roommates were both away. I pushed
my key through the mail-slot, and heard it clatter on the other side. To the
stillness that followed, I just listened.

I was departing from
Pittsburgh just five months after arriving. This hadn't been the plan, wasn't
in the contract. I didn't know how to talk about what was happening. I just
knew that it had something to do with "The Feeling."

"The
Feeling" was a desperate pull from deep within. It was an ancient sort of
voice saying, "there's more to life than this, dig deeper." The first
time I can remember "The Feeling," I was in middle school and leaving
the movie theatre with my friends. We'd already seen all the good movies
playing, but there was literally nothing else to do. So, we bought tickets. The
movie, whatever it was, deeply irritated me; the film was boring and
predictable, super Hollywood-y. But my friends? They didn't seem to notice.
Walking out of the double doors to the parking lot, the cool rush of wind
revived me from my anger. I breathed in ravenously, trying to understand it.
Throughout high school, I would continue struggle to make sense of this
disparity between me and my friends. What was wrong with me? What was wrong
with them? Why weren't they angry?

I moved to Morgantown
in 2004, and for awhile, the newness of college life at West Virginia
University made me forget "The Feeling." I lived in the dorms,
Boreman North on N. High Street. This was prior to the increased policing of
parties by the city. I went to many house parties with my roommates, who were
into getting all dressed up. I wasn't, but I let them doll me up anyway. None
of the sparkly shirts I wore that year were mine. We did what you might expect
young freshman girls who are away from home for the first time to do. We
partied. Which was easy, as we were literally a stone’s throw away from all the
fraternity houses. I remember at one party, I accidently knocked over a huge
pyramid of Natty Light cans and a circle of sorority girls threatened to spit
on me. At another, my roommate and I danced on hundreds of crushed cans while a
band played Rage Against the Machine covers. We danced until everyone else was
gone and we realized the band had been replaced with speakers. In the bathroom
on the way out, my roommate slipped and fell on the floor which was covered in
wet, soiled toilet paper. It was my birthday.

It was only a couple
of months after my birthday that "The Feeling" returned. I was with
my roommates, standing in line outside of Club Z on Walnut Street, shivering in
a too-tiny jean jacket and pointy-toed shoes. What was the point of standing in
line with a bunch of strangers in the freezing cold, when, once inside and
transformed by alcohol and thumping base, these same cold strangers would be
holding my hand and grinding on me like we were best friends? I looked across
the street and saw a guy vomiting next to a pile of clothes on the sidewalk
outside of Christian Help Incorporated. Desperate, I wanted someone to come and
save me, to walk opposite the line of us fools, look back and hold out their
hand. I wanted some angel to show me a better use of my time. That night, I
went into the club anyway, but something had changed. I decided I didn't want
to do this anymore. I began poking fun at the whole scene. But my attitude
wasn't making me any friends. Instead, it seemed to alienate the only ones I
had.

It wasn't days or
weeks, but months that passed. I had stopped going to clubs with my roommates.
"The Feeling,” the voice inside of me telling me, "There’s more to
life than this, dig deeper," was still there. I began to spend most of my
time sleeping or oversleeping. I was working in a Japanese Restaurant and
always smelled like fried rice. Because grains of rice would get stuck to my
shoes, ants invaded my bedroom, and eventually, the rest of our house. Soon, my
roommates stopped talking to me completely except through passive-aggressive
sticky notes they left on my door. "Ants are in the animal crackers now,
thanks." My boyfriend and I broke up, but he'd still show up at our house
once in awhile, drunk, and try to have sex with me. It continued on in this way
for awhile. The ants had long since won the battle for my shoes and all my shit
on the floor and I was too depressed to do anything about it. My laundry hadn't
been done in over a month.

On a particularly bad
day, I might step onto the porch to go to class, taking in the blooming flowers
and a grey sky, and I'd hear the girls who lived above us, arguing with their
boyfriends. I'd decide I hated everyone and because I was going to be late for
class, I hated myself too. I'd turn back around and forget about entering the
world that day, letting my backpack off my shoulders to the floor. I'd then
spend all my waking hours hiding in my dim, wood-paneled room, filling
notebooks with places I wanted to visit. I imagined working as a tour guide in
Tibet, or maybe picking cranberries in Oregon. A good day wasn't much
different.

It was Bobby who saved
me. My angel had unruly hair, a messy beard, and liked to collect toxic
water from Boone County. I met Bobby on spring break on an Adventure West
Virginia trip. I hardly knew him, but I knew him enough to stop and say
"hello," and one night when I ran into him on campus, I said
"hello," and he gave me a postcard. The postcard would have been just
another scenic snapshot, except for brightly colored arrows pointing to various
spots on the card. "That's Marsh Fork Elementary," Bobby said.
"And that's a slurry impoundment." I had never heard these words
before. Never tasted the words, "coal waste," in my mouth. Until that
night, I hadn't even known our electricity came from coal, I'd just taken it
for granted. Despite growing up just outside of Washington D.C., strangely
enough, I hadn't known electricity could be politicized. Nonetheless, I tried
to understand what Bobby was telling me about the kids who attended Marsh Fork
Elementary, how some of the families living nearby slept with their shoes on
when it rained, and prayed like hell for a dam to hold.

It was shortly after
this random encounter with Bobby that something happened that changed my life.
I got spammed on Facebook. The message was from a stranger and read something
like this:

"Do you care
about the environment and want to change the world? Live in Washington D.C. for
a semester. Learn how to organize campaigns. Learn how to use media and become
a leader in your community. Learn how to climb industrial buildings and drive
boats used to stop whaling ships. Apply today!"

Okay, I did not want
to be a leader. I had never cared about politics. I just wanted to spend a
semester away from Morgantown with people who wanted more out of life. Maybe
this was the answer to "The Feeling." But the application asked,
"what issue did I hope to apply my training towards?" I didn't have
an issue. I knew my application had to be the best thing I'd ever produced. If
I continued on my current path, if I didn't do something to change my life, I
knew I would continue to fall off the face of the earth. With a jolt, I turned
and pulled Bobby's postcard from the wall and re-read everything it said about
coal waste and mountaintop removal mining. I wrote about the kids at Marsh Fork
and submitted my application that same day.

I am happy to be able
to tell you that I did leave Morgantown, and I did learn how to drive the boats
used to stop whaling ships, and many other things. I am also pleased to tell
you that seven months later, I was excited to come back. If you crossed the
street in front of the Mountainlair, the student union at WVU in Morgantown,
anytime in 2007, you've probably seen me. I was the girl handing out flyers and
talking about the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC), the most active environmental
organization on campus, and one of the oldest in the nation. I was the girl who
tried to get you to sign a petition while you were just trying to go to Burger
King. And sometimes, once in awhile, I was the girl in the polar bear
suit. 2007 was a time of great exuberance, passion, and growth in the
organization that I had just joined. We were doing a lot more than just playing
dress-up. Behind the scenes, during our weekly planning sessions,
something was happening. We were planning how we were going to change the state
of West Virginia, starting with WVU. We began to realize we could challenge
authority and create the world we wanted to live in. We began cooking and
eating together. We become a family.

During these meals, we
came to realize that if we wanted to change the world, we would have to change
ourselves. We decided that the SSC wasn't going to be the kind of club where
you go into a meeting and sat politely while one person, usually the president,
spoke. We would abandon hierarchy altogether. We wanted to shape a world where
every voice was heard and every person was treated equally. Leadership was
enthusiasm based. Everyone who wanted to could help create our yearly plan. No
one was president. Instead we had rotating facilitators. The group swelled. One
Wednesday night, a guy I'd never seen before came in with his wife. He said he
wanted to make Morgantown "more accessible for people in
wheelchairs." Okay, we didn't have anyone working on that. Our main
focuses were: improving energy efficiency on campus, promoting campus
investment in renewable energy, ending mountaintop removal coal mining, and
recycling. But, our vision included a space for all voices to be heard- and he
was heard. His name was Dan and he was welcome here. This was what we made.

Yet, the cost for this
education was high: to others, it was a strange plaid of semi-successful
projects, a lot of missed classes, mediocre school grades, and poor "real
world" career prospects. Some people didn't get it. Some die-hard
recyclers were always pissed off that we were running "campaigns." What
were those? At times, WVU's administration's refusal to take us seriously was
unbelievably frustrating. But respect has to be earned, and I believed without
any doubt that we would change West Virginia. I believed it was such force that
it was contagious. Here we were, a group of young people actually doing
something to change the world. It was more satisfying than going to the movies.
It was more exhilarating than Club Z. No longer was I dreaming about
wading around on Oregon's coast, picking cranberries. I was right where I
wanted to be. I loved my new friend-family and would have done anything for
them. And an amazing thing happened; "The Feeling" went away.

In my days as an
environmental activist at WVU, I would estimate that I talked to more than
3,000 people about environmental and other world problems. I led workshops on
leadership, organizing, campaigns, media, outreach, event planning and time
management. I traveled to southern West Virginia and met Larry Gibson, a
leading activist against mountaintop removal mining, and many others fighting
the powers that hold a firm grip on West Virginia's mountain communities. I
protested at a power plant, led Morgantown's first toxic-tour, sat down with
the school's president and brought forth proposals and more than 1500 petitions
signed by students. I refused to leave an Ohio power company's corporate
office, and even protested the Ku Klux Klan in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is fair
to say that I was on top of the world. "The Feeling" that had plagued
me for so long was gone, and it had all started because of that one random
encounter with Bobby.

I almost wish I had
died at that moment on top of the world. But death would have been the easy way
out. I didn't die. I graduated. Graduation swooped in fast, like one of those
unexpected sticky-notes on my bedroom door. I didn't really know the people I
was walking with at graduation, and by the time of the actual ceremony, I
already missed my friends. In a flash, I was thrown from this great wave I'd
been riding. I took a strange pounding, struggling between sand and sky. Buoyed
more by force than by will, I resurfaced. I looked around. Everything that had
once been home was gone. I caught glimpses of my friends paddling away towards
some horizon line I couldn't see, until finally, I was alone in the vast,
unknowable sea. As the last streaks of pink and orange left the sky, I just
sort of bobbed there. I had made no plans.

I treaded water until
I came to a stream, a current slicing through the ocean. So tired was I from
treading, that I let the stream carry me until I arrived at a desk job in
Pittsburgh. Beginning in August, 2008, I was a paid Regional Organizer for the
SSC. This was the same SSC that I had been a part of on campus, except that now
I was to work regionally in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. My home
base was in Pittsburgh, but I was to travel those three states and support the
work of students, offer resources and advice, and one other little thing: a
unified national agenda. Before being hired, I was warned that the plan for the
fall of 2008 was to stop global warming through political action. I was told
that this was so important, that now was a time to put local work on hold in
order to elect a "climate champion." In my post-graduation shock, I
convinced myself that this was a dream job. I told myself that after the
election, I would be able to get back into the business of "enthusiasm
based leadership," helping student groups work on the issues that they
felt empowered by, rather than a national agenda. It was 2008, and
everyone was talking about college graduates facing bleak futures. But I had a
salary. I had benefits. I wasn't working in a restaurant anymore. I had made
it.

As weeks turned into
months, the voice protesting inside my head could not be quieted. I turned the
national strategy over in my head, unpacked it, and repackaged it. Still, it
didn't feel right. I was on the road, trying to sell the vision of climate
champions to high school and college students, and I didn't even believe in
it. I felt like a parasite, feeding off of young people’s vibrancy.
Electing “climate champions" to congress just didn't feel as empowering as
using my hands and my power to change my communities from the inside out. Very
few people I talked to were excited by or understood the campaign. A good
regional organizer knows when to stop putting forth a national agenda, I
thought. A good regional organizer listens. A good regional organizer
encourages people to discover their own quest. I voiced these opinions with my
manager, and other co-workers but didn't find much support. I felt alienated
from my new peers. But this, I realized, was only half of my problem.

Living in a new city,
being at home was only slightly better than being on the road. I missed my
friends and had scarcely given time to process the grief of what I had lost. I
began to care less and less about the students I was working with. I cannot
tell you how many times, sleeping in my car in random rural counties throughout
Pennsylvania, that "The Feeling" returned. "There has to be
more to life than this, dig deeper."

To Romany Gypsies, the
greatest curse you can aim at someone is isolation. To be bereft of your
ancestors, squabbling brothers, inspiration, and livestock, is to be only just
alive.

And so, I quit. I left Pittsburgh. You'll remember from
the beginning of my story that as I left, I heard only the sound of ice
crunching underfoot and saw only a midnight blue sky. I was only beginning to
understand the importance of grieving, how joy and sadness can be felt at the
same time. I will say only of what has happened since. After I left Pittsburgh
and the Sierra Student Coalition, I spent not days, or weeks, but years, laying
low. I will tell you that I worked briefly on a farm, and that I traveled a
good bit, and that I tried to love other people, but that I was angry all the
time and realized that I still wasn't ready to love or help others. I will also
tell you that I went back to school, where I did exactly zero activism,
although I did work long hours with my pen, unraveling unfinished friendships
and abandoned revolutionary projects. I will tell you that it has taken me even
longer to unravel my heart and accept responsibility for my mistakes. Now, I am
listening. I am learning to trust "The Feeling," the bird in my heart
who sings when she's hungry.

Christy Hartman scored her current job as a producer by offering to set her shoelaces on fire. Ira Glass once told her something she wrote was, "fucking beautiful." She lives in the Bay Area and likes writing on real paper.